The World is my Playground

Partying the night before traveling was a big mistake, especially if that party lasted until around 5 in the morning. Sure, our flight was at 7 in the evening, but when you took advantage of the many promotions of Ryan Air, you better know how to get to the Beauvais Airport. On time.

We were 4 – Harriet and her boyfriend, Olivier, Jela, and me. We met at Porte Maillot around 4.35 in the afternoon. If we had arrived 15 minutes before, we wouldn’t have missed the 4.30 bus – the bus that took the passengers going to Venice to Beauvais.

When you are with your friends, everything moves in slow motion. You speak and laugh and forget about everything else. Or maybe that’s just us – we are happy-go-lucky and we love to laugh all the time.

We took the next bus to Beauvais, which is at 5.35. Big mistake. The ticket vendor warned us that we would be late, but did I listen? Of course not. I bought tickets for 4 and waited for 5.35, confident that at 9.30, we would be walking around Venice.

At 5.30, the bus left. That gained us extra five minutes. What I didn’t foresee was the horrible and wicked Parisian traffic.  But did I stress? I slept. No use stressing and using up my energy. I would need all my energy to run later to the check in counter.

I woke up 10 minutes before 7. My friends were all quiet. They were stressed. But Olivier showed us something in his iPhone. The flight to Venice was delayed and had been moved to 9PM. Wow, how lucky are we? But still, I began to stress a little. I just have a feeling that this was not right.

Finally, we reached Beauvais at 7.15PM. We ran all the way to the counter and were met by a very unhappy woman who told us that we missed the flight and that in 15 minutes, the plane would be taking off. We forced her to take us in, begged her, and showed her the new schedule that we found over the Internet. They said that that was a mistake and we should have been in the airport at 6.45.

We had the option to rebook and wait again till the next day to fly to Venice or go somewhere else like Rome or Portugal, but we didn’t want to give up 100 euros per person when we only paid 20 euros back and forth for the flight.

We went outside to ponder, eat, and smoke. Then we reached an impulsive decision to rent a car and go to Amsterdam. I didn’t expect that my first trip out of France this year was Amsterdam. Again. After only two months of visiting the place. But I told myself that Amsterdam is way better than being stuck in Beauvais.

So we got the cheapest rental car from Sixt. Olivier drove and Harriet co-piloted. Jela and I sat in the back with our seatbelts on. I forgot how much sitting in the back made me sick and dizzy. So I slept the whole time and every time Olivier opened the window to smoke, I die a little and shiver all over. This went on for 5 hours. Sleep. Shocking reveille. Shiver. Sleep again.

At around 4 in the morning, we reached the Centrum. We all woke up and argued over where to park the car. What an expensive city for drivers. Parking per hour is 5 euros. We drove around the city to look for a 1 euro parking but we didn’t have any luck.

This day turned out to be quite unlucky.

We parked the car in a free spot until 9AM and walked around. We passed by the “Quartier Rouge” and saw only a couple of women waiting for customers. It was around 6 in the morning. We continued to search for bars but found that almost everything was closed, until we stumbled upon a coffeeshop.

As we pushed open the door, the sweet smell of bo-bo greeted us warmly. We settled in a place by the window to people watch. Olivier and I went to the counter to buy some sweets – he chose the strong one and I chose an already wrapped bo-bo that is very mild, and shared it with my friends.

Suddenly, we were laughing about nothing and about everything. How the hell did we end up in Amsterdam? At least, we were in the Venice of the North, eh? We laughed at our stupidity over missing the flight, at Olivier’s broken English, and at seriously being in a coffeeshop at 6AM. I was having a blast.

At 7AM, we had to move. We drove around the city again, got lost, got pissed off among each other because we got lost, slept because we got pissed off among each other because we got lost, leaving everything to Olivier’s hands because he was the driver.

We finally found a parking space for 36 euros for 24 hours. I led everyone to the canals behind Central station to settle in a boatel. But it was a bad idea to come without reservations. Most of the boatels were not in service during the weekdays and the one where I stayed at 2 months ago was under renovation.

We dragged our tired asses back to the road again. We walked with our backpacks without speaking. We didn’t dare cross the streets carelessly. The cars were very fast and the bicycles were even faster. After finding something decent across Central, we slept for 3 hours.

I already knew what was gonna happen – sleep until 2, take a shower and get ready, go around the city (the significant parts, at least), eat, go to the Red Light district, go to a bar, and then go to a coffeeshop.

And that’s exactly what happened.

I made the mistake of eating Peking duck in Amsterdam. Don’t get me wrong, it was great but we should have eaten something local, like Dutch pancakes, or pea soup.

The sun sets early in Amsterdam during winter. We were able to pass by the Anne Frank house and take photos outside. I have already been inside in November and I found it quite interesting to see the hiding place of a once very promising young girl who wrote in her diary during the war. I thought her writings were incredibly graceful and touching and the story was heartrending. A few more weeks and they would have been free to see the sun once again and play outside, but tragedy striked in the form of betrayal.

Honestly though, I found the museums here quite expensive. I paid around 8 euros to go inside the Anne Frank house and 15 euros in the Van Gogh museum. They don’t even have student discounts, from what I remember.

After the museum, Jela and I went to Werdenmarket and walked around. Olivier and Harriet went to a bar. Every shop was closed and there was nothing else to do. We didn’t make enough research and I forgot to bring my book about Amsterdam. What a shame. If only I had known.

Everyone wanted to do his/her own thing. Jela wanted to go to the Diamond museum, Harriet to a field of tulips, Olivier to a bar or the Heineken museum, and me – well, I just wanted to be in Venice. But then we stayed in the bar where Harriet and Olivier were drinking for quite quite some time. In a way, it was fun to be back here with a bunch of other people. It’s always good to be with friends.

We ended up seeing the girls in the Red Light district. We found some very pretty ones and one of them even had that air of innocence in her. We all wondered if they keep the money they earn for themselves and who their employers are. Again, research was badly needed.

Before we went back to the hotel, we went to another coffeeshop.

It was a fine day, but we were tired and so we tucked ourselves in bed after midnight to prepare for the long journey the next day.